Wiley Blount Rutledge

“ But it cannot be the duty, because it is not the right, of the state to protect the public against false doctrine. The very purpose of the First Amendment is to foreclose public authority from assuming a guardianship of the public mind through regulating the press, speech, and religion. In this field every person must be his own watchman for truth, because the forefathers did not trust any government to separate the true from the false for us. ”

“ The union of which Thomas is the head was one of the choices offered to these workers, and to me it was in the best American tradition that they hired a hall and advertised a meeting, and that Thomas went there and publicly faced his labor constituents. How better could these men learn what they might be getting into? By his public appearance and speech he would disclose himself as a temperate man or a violent one, a reasonable leader that well-disposed workmen could follow or an irresponsible one from whom they might expect disappointment, an earnest and understanding leader or a self-seeker. ”

“ The State of Texas stands on its well-settled right reasonably to regulate the pursuit of a vocation, including-we may assume-the occupation of labor organizer. Thomas, on the other hand, stands on the equally clear proposition that Texas may not interfere with the right of any person peaceably and freely to address a lawful assemblage of workmen intent on considering labor grievances. ”

“ So long as no more is involved than exercise of the rights of free speech and free assembly, it is immune to such a restriction. If one who solicits support for the cause of labor may be required to register as a condition to the exercise of his right to make a public speech, so may he who seeks to rally support for any social, business, religious or political cause. We think a requirement that one must register before he undertakes to make a public speech to enlist support for a lawful movement is quite incompatible with the requirements of the First Amendment. ”

“ It cannot be so easily discovered if you allow him to remain silent and look wise, but if you let him speak, the secret is out and the world knows that he is a fool. So it is by the exposure of folly that it is defeated; not by the seclusion of folly, and in this free air of free speech men get into that sort of communication with one another which constitutes the basis of all common achievement.' Address at the Institute of France, Paris, May 10, 1919. ”

“ But I do not think it can prohibit one, even if he is a salaried labor leader, from making an address to a public meeting of workmen, telling them their rights as he sees them and urging them to unite in general or to join a specific union.
This wider range of power over pursuit of a calling than over speech-making is due to the different effects which the two have on interests which the state is empowered to protect. The modern state owes and attempts to perform a duty to protect the public from those who seek for one purpose or another to obtain its money. ”

“ General words create different and often particular impressions on different minds. No speaker, however careful, can convey exactly his meaning, or the same meaning, to the different members of an audience. How one might 'laud unionism,' as the State and the State Supreme Court concede Thomas was free to do, yet in these circumstances not imply an invitation, is hard to conceive. This is the nub of the case, which the State fails to meet because it cannot do so. Workingmen do not lack capacity for making rational connections. ”

“ The solicitation at which the Texas Act is aimed may or may not involve the payment of initiation fees or dues to the solicitor. But, in any case, it involves the assumption of business and financial liability by him who is persuaded to join a union. The transaction is in essence a business one. Labor unions are business associations; their object is generally business dealings and relationships as is manifest from the financial statements of some of the national unions. Men are persuaded to join them for business reasons, as employers are persuaded to join trade associations for like reasons. ”

“ That the State has power to regulate labor unions with a view to protecting the public interest is, as the Texas court said, hardly to be doubted. They cannot claim special immunity from regulation. Such regulation however, whether aimed at fraud or other abuses, must not trespass upon the domain set apart for free speech and free assembly. This Court has recognized that 'in the circumstances of our times the dissemination of information concerning the facts of a labor dispute must be regarded as within that area of free discussion that is guaranteed by the Constitution. ”

“ It compels the speaker to hedge and trim. He must take care in every word to create no impression that he means, in advocating unionism's most central principle, namely, that workingmen should unite for collective bargaining, to urge those present to do so. The vice is not merely that invitation, in the circumstances shown here, is speech. It is also that its prohibition forbids or restrains discussion which is not or may not be invitation. The sharp line cannot be drawn surely or securely. ”

“ It extends to more than abstract discussion, unrelated to action. The First Amendment is a charter for government, not for an institution of learning. 'Free trade in ideas' means free trade in the opportunity to persuade to action, not merely to describe facts. ”

“ When legislation or its application can confine labor leaders on such occasions to innocuous and abstract discussion of the virtues of trade unions and so becloud even this with doubt, uncertainty and the risk of penalty, freedom of speech for them will be at an end. A restriction so destructive of the right of public discussion, without greater or more imminent danger to the public interest than existed in this case, is incompatible with the freedoms secured by the First Amendment. ”

“ The Constitution protects no less the employees' converse right. Of course espousal of the cause of labor is entitled to no higher constitutional protection than the espousal of any other lawful cause. It is entitled to the same protection.
Apart from its 'business practice' theory, the State contends that Section 5 is not inconsistent with freedom of speech and assembly, since this is merely a previous identification requirement which, according to the State court's decision, gives the Secretary of State only 'ministerial, not discretionary' authority. ”

“ A state may forbid one without its license to practice law as a vocation, but I think it could not stop an unlicensed person from making a speech about the rights of man or the rights of labor, or any other kind of right, including recommending that his hearers organize to support his views. ”

“ We should face a very different question if the statute attempted to define the necessary qualifications of an organizer; purported to regulate what organizers might say; limited their movements or activities; essayed to regulate time, place or purpose of meetings; or restricted speakers in the expression of views. But it does none of these things.
It is suggested that the Act is to be distinguished from legislation regulating the use of the streets or the solicitation of money. ”

“ Not until today, however, has it been questioned that there was any clash between this right to think one's thoughts and to express them and the right of people to the protected in their dealings with those who hold themselves out in some professional capacity by requiring registration of those who profess to pursue such callings. Doctors and nurses, lawyers and notaries, bankers and accountants, insurance agents and solicitors of every kind in every State of this Union have traditionally been under duty to make some identification of themselves as practitioners of their calling. ”

“ Stripped to its bare bones, this argument is that labor organizations are beneficial and lawful; that solicitation of members by and for them is a necessary incident of their progress; that freedom to solicit for them is a liberty of speech protected against state action by the Fourteenth Amendment and the National Labor Relations Act, and hence Texas cannot require a paid solicitor to identify himself. I think this is the issue and the only issue presented to the courts below and decided by them, and the only one raised here. ”

“ There is no reason why labor organizers should not to likewise. I think that if anyone pursues solicitation as a business for profit, of members for any organization, religious, secular or business, his calling does not bar the state from requiring him to identify himself as what he is,-a paid solicitor. ”

“ The provision, it was said, 'affects only the right of one to engage in the business as a paid organizer, and not the mere right of an individual to express his views on the merits of the union.' The court declared the act 'does not require a paid organizer to secure a license,' but makes mandatory the issuance of the card 'to all who come within the provisions of the Act upon their good-faith compliance therewith.' Accordingly it held that the regulation was not unreasonable. ”

“ First, no point is made of the circumstance that the appellant's proposed activity was enjoined in advance. Counsel at our bar asserted the constitutional vice lay in the prohibition of the statute and that vice would preclude arrest and conviction for violation, no less than injunction against the denounced activity.
Secondly, the appellant does not contend that he was other than a 'labor organizer' within the meaning of the Act. In fact he is an officer of a union and not employed specifically as an organizer or solicitor of memberships. ”

“ In the absence of a showing against the need for the statute this court ought not incontinently to reject the State's considered views of policy.
The judgment of the court below that the power exists reasonably to regulate solicitation, and that the exercise of the power by the Act in question is not unnecessarily burdensome, is not to be rejected on abstract grounds. No fee is charged. The card may be obtained by mail. To comply with the law the appellant need only have furnished his name and affiliation, and his credentials. The statute nowise regulates, curtails, or bans his activities. ”

“ So far as free speech alone is concerned, there can be no ban or restriction or burden placed on the use of such a word except on showing of exceptional circumstances where the public safety, morality or health is involved or some other substantial interest of the community is at stake. ”

“ When one does so through the practice of a calling, the state may have an interest in shielding the public against the untrustworthy, the incompetent, or the irresponsible, or against unauthorized representation of agency. ”

“ Both the parties and the Government, which has appeared as amicus curiae, have advanced contentions on this issue independent of those put forward upon the question of constitutionality. Since a majority of the Court do not agree that Section 5 or its present application conflicts with the National Labor Relations Act, our decision rests exclusively upon the grounds we have stated for finding that the statute as applied contravenes the Constitution.
The restraint is not small when it is considered what was restrained. The right is a national right, federally guaranteed. ”

“ And the right either of workmen or of unions under these conditions to assemble and discuss their own affairs is as fully protected by the Constitution as the right of businessmen, farmers, educators, political party members or others to assemble and discuss their affairs and to enlist the support of others. ”

“ The necessity for choosing collective bargaining representatives brings the same nature of problem to groups of organizing workmen that our representative democratic processes bring to the nation. Their smaller society, too, must choose between rival leaders and competing policies. ”

“ Thomas went to Texas for one purpose and one only-to make the speech in question. Its whole object was publicly to proclaim the advantages of workers' organization and to persuade workmen to join Local No. 1002 as part of a campaign for members. These also were the sole objects of the meeting. The campaign, and the meeting, were incidents of an impending election for collective bargaining agent, previously ordered by national authority pursuant to the guaranties of national law. Those guaranties include the workers' right to organize freely for collective bargaining. ”

“ It discussed, among other things, the State's effort, as Thomas conceived it, to interfere with his right to speak and closed with a general invitation to persons present not members of a labor union to join Local No. 1002 and thereby support the labor movement throughout the country. As written, the speech did not address the invitation to any specific individual by name or otherwise. [4] But Thomas testified that he added, at the conclusion of the written speech, an oral solicitation of one Pat O'Sullivan, a nonunion man in the audience whom he previously had never seen. ”

“ The Secretary is then to issue to him a card showing his name and affiliation, which is to be signed by him and also signed and sealed by the Secretary of State, and is to bear the designation 'labor organizer.' It is made the duty of the organizer to carry the card and, on request, to exhibit it to any person he solicits. ”

“ The motions were denied and, after hearing, the court ordered the temporary injunction to issue. It also rendered judgment holding Thomas in contempt for violating the restraining order and fixed the penalty at three days in jail and a fine of $100. Process for commitment thereupon issued and was executed. Application to the supreme court for the writ of habeas corpus was made and granted, the cause was set for hearing in October, and Thomas was released on bond, all on September 25. ”